Motorbikes and other vehicles flood a parking lot of 1,500 square meters on Ho Van Long Street of Binh Tan District on Friday afternoon. The lot is managed by Binh Tan Police Department.
Many have stood here for nearly a decade.
The entire parking lot is guarded by only one staff member and is not equipped with either an automatic fire alarm system or fire extinguishers.
Surrounding the area is a corrugated iron fence rising about two meters.
Lying 20 kilometers away, the parking lot managed by District 7 traffic police is also densely packed with an array of vehicles.
Spread over 1,000 square meters, the lot lies adjacent to a residential area and has no fire alarm system and only one entrance.
Some vehicles are piled as high as five meters.
According to the government’s regulations, these parking lots must ensure safety, security and order, have a system of protective fences, rules on entry and exit, regulations on environmental protection, as well as fire prevention and fighting.
If located outdoors, a roof is to protect evidence.
HCMC police are currently holding around 90,000 vehicles as evidence across different parking lots, many suffering overload.
Most recently, a lot of 1,100 square meters in Thu Duc City caught fire, destroying 300 motorbikes and four other vehicles and damaging a four-story apartment building nearby.
Last March, a fire in Thu Duc consumed over 70 motorbikes.
